^{page 100 note 1} Although there are significant disagreements among the experts on matters of emphasis and detail, this account is based on the work of one leading authority: Chambers, J. D., Population, Economy, and Society in Pre-Industrial England, ed. by Armstrong, W. A. (Oxford, 1972), esp. pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

^{page 100 note 2} Ibid. No attempt will be made here to outline major developments in commerce, agriculture, manufacturing or technology, for such an account would take us too far afield. For reliable general textbooks see Wilson, Charles, England's Apprenticeship 1603–1763 (London, 1965)Google Scholar, and Clarkson, L. A., The Pre-Industrial Economy in England 1500–1750 (London, 1971).Google Scholar

^{page 100 note 3} Coleman, D. C., “Labour in the English economy of the seventeenth century”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, VIII (1955–1956), esp. pp. 283–84Google Scholar. This view has been generally accepted by subsequent historians.

^{page 100 note 4} This opinion can be traced back well beyond our period. Cf. Professor F. J. Fisher's delightful quotation from a sixteenth-century pamphlet: “Oh if thou knewest thou Englishe man in what welth thou livest and in how plentifull a Countrye: Thou wouldst vii times of the day fall flat on thy face before God, and geve him thanks, that thou wart born an English man, and not a french pezant, nor an Italyan, nor Almane.” Cited in Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, ed. by Fisher, F. J. (Cambridge, 1961), p. 13.Google Scholar

^{page 101 note 1} This is one of the major themes of Professor Chambers's posthumous work referred to above, p. 100, note 1. For a general study of short-term changes see Ashton, T. S., Economic Fluctuations in England 1700–1800 (Oxford, 1959).Google Scholar

^{page 101 note 2} Northern Tour (1768), IV, p. 467.Google Scholar

^{page 101 note 3} An Economic History of England: The Eighteenth Century (London, 1955), p. 201.Google Scholar

^{page 101 note 4} Coleman, loc. cit., pp. 283–84.

^{page 102 note 1} Cf. Wilson, op. cit., p. 231; Clarkson, op. cit., p. 233.

^{page 102 note 2} Coleman, loc. cit., pp. 285–86; Marshall, J. D., The Old Poor Law 1795–1834 (London, 1968), esp. pp. 33–35.Google Scholar

^{page 102 note 3} Of course this proportion varied widely from time to time and place to place, according to local employment opportunities. As Dr Marshall suggests, careful local studies could undoubtedly provide a much more detailed and accurate picture of these variations than is currently available.

^{page 103 note 1} This is a major theme of innumerable histories of economic thought. Of special interest in the present connection is Letwin, W., The Origins of Scientific Economics, English Economic Thought 1660–1776 (London, 1963).Google Scholar

^{page 103 note 2} Historians of literature seem much more aware of the significance of this point than historians of economics. See, for example, Watt, Ian, The Rise of the Novel, Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Saunders, J. W., The Profession of English Letters (London, 1964)Google Scholar; and other studies of the output of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century novels, periodicals and newspapers. As there was then no distinct category of “economists” or economic writers, it is necessary to view economic writings in relation to other categories of literature. This point is especially important in considering labour and poverty in view of the difficulty of distinguishing economic treatises from poor-law pamphlets and the vast volume of religious tracts and ethical homilies.

^{page 104 note 1} See, for example, Smelser, Neil, “A Comparative View of Exchange Systems”, in: Economic Development and Cultural Change, VII (1959), pp. 173–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gouldner, Alvin, “The Norm of Reciprocity”, in: American Sociological Review, XXV (1960), pp. 161–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 104 note 2} It is noteworthy that, despite the prevalent belief that “the majority must be kept in poverty that the whole might be rich”, there was no serious discus ion of the distribution of income or wealth. Cf. the classic study by Furniss, Edgar S., The Position of the Laborer in a System of Nationalism, A Study of Labor Theories of the Later English Mercantilists (New York, 1957; originally published in 1920).Google Scholar The quotation is from p. 8.

^{page 105 note 1} Cf. Johnson, E. A. J., The Predecessors of Adam Smith, The Growth of British Economic Thought (London, 1937), ch. XV.Google Scholar According to Furniss, op. cit., p. 41, “In Mercantilistic thought, as in all systems of nationalism, a nationally valuable was distinguished from a nationally useless population by the test of employment, and this test comprised not only considerations of the amount but also of the kind of occupation.”

^{page 105 note 2} This view was, of course, propagated by Keynes, J. M. himself, in the final chapter of his General Theory of Employment Interest and Money (London, 1936).Google Scholar One of the principal missing links in the eighteenth-century view was the failure to integrate the rate of interest and the marginal efficiency of capital into the system, largely because of a lack of understanding of the process of investment.

^{page 105 note 3} For example, by SirSteuart, James: “provided man be made to labour, and make the earth produce abundantly, and provided that either authority, industry, or charity, can make ths produce circulate for the nourishment of the free hands, the principle of a great population is brought to a full activity.” An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy, ed. by Skinner, Andrew S. (Edinburgh, 1966; originally published in 1767), I, p. 67.Google Scholar See also p. 94.

^{page 106 note 1} Cf., for example, Bindon, David, A Scheme for Supplying Industrious Men with Money to Carry on their Trades, 3rd ed. (Dublin, 1750; originally published in 1729), p. 62Google Scholar; SirGee, Joshua, The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain, 4th ed. (London, 1738; originally published in 1729), p. 134Google Scholar; Braddon, Lawrence, An Abstract of the Draught of a Bill for Relieving, Reforming and Employing the Poor (London, 1717), p. viiiGoogle Scholar; and Bellers, John, An Essay toward the Improvement of Physick […] with an Essay for Imploying the Able Poor (London, 1714), p. 111Google Scholar, who estimated the loss of every industrious labourer capable of having children as equivalent to a “Two Hundred Pound Loss to the Kingdom”.

^{page 106 note 2} As quoted by Letwin, op. cit., pp. 112–13.

^{page 106 note 3} In particular, the risks of obscuring the variety of opinions and the variations in local economic and social conditions and poor-law practices.

^{page 106 note 4} Marshall, Dorothy, The English Poor in the Eighteenth Century, A Study in Social and Administrative History (London, 1926)Google Scholar, and Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, English Poor Law History, Part I: The Old Poor Law [English Local Government, Vol. 7] (London, 1927).Google Scholar

^{page 107 note 1} Just as it was widely held that the children of the poor must be “inured to early labour”, so too it was argued, for adults, “better to burn a thousand men's labours for a time, then to let those thousand men by non-employment lose their faculty of labouring”. William Petty, Economic Writings, ed. by Hull, C. H. (Cambridge, Mass., 1899), p. 60.Google Scholar

^{page 107 note 2} This view, of course, depended on the assumption that employment opportunities were available for the unemployed poor, a view that gained increasing support towards the mid-century. It was compatible with a growing scepticism towards interventionist “make-work” schemes.

^{page 107 note 3} Cf. Beloff, Max, Public Order and Popular Disturbances, 1660–1714 (Oxford, 1938)Google Scholar; Rose, R. B., “Eighteenth Century Price Riots and Public Policy in England”, in: International Review of Social History, VI (1961), esp. pp. 279–81.Google Scholar

^{page 108 note 1} S. and B. Webb, op. cit., pp. 113–16. They remark that Defoe threw into the discussion “the hardest possible stone of economic disillusionment and worldly cynicism”. A comparable mood was evident in Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees (1714) and his Essay on Charity Schools (1723), both of which contain a detached, cynical and calculating attitude to the problem of poverty.

^{page 108 note 2} For a more detailed account of this phase see my two articles “Changing Attitudes to Labour in the Mid-Eighteenth Century”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XI (1958), pp. 35–51Google Scholar (reprinted in Essays in Social History, ed. by M. W. Flinn and T. C. Smout (Oxford, 1974)), and “Economic Thought and Poor Law Policy in the Eighteenth Century”, ibid., XIII (1960) pp. 39–51.

^{page 108 note 3} In a later article Richard C. Wiles demonstrated that support for “high wages” was less infrequent in the pre-1750 period than I had supposed. Cf. “The Theory of Wages in Later English Mercantilism”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, Vol. XXI (1968), pp. 113–26.Google Scholar Nevertheless the main argument about the difference in attitudes between the two periods is unaffected, for this was not simply a matter of high wages. The discussion of wage levels (which was, in any case, more complex than Wiles suggested) was only part of a larger corpus of ideas and beliefs. It would, however, be inappropriate to pursue the matter further at this juncture.

^{page 109 note 1} This is in accordance with the views expressed by Professor Chambers, who emphasized the relationship between population, economic expansion, and rising expectations. Op. cit., pp. 30, 145.

^{page 109 note 2} Any detailed examination of this possibility would, of course, call for a careful distinction between different categories of the labouring poor, different occupations and different regions.

^{page 109 note 3} See, for example, Thompson, Edward P., “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century”, in: Past & Present, No 50 (1971), pp. 76–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Beloff, op. cit.; George Rudé, The Crowd in History, A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England 1730–1848 (London, 1964); and the recent study by Shelton, Walter J., English Hunger and Industrial Disorders. A Study of Social Conflict during the first decade of George Ill's reign (London, 1973).Google Scholar This paragraph and the two following are based on these sources.

^{page 110 note 1} For further discussion of this point see my article “Economic Thought and Poor Law Policy”, loc. cit.

^{page 110 note 2} Gilbert, Thomas, A Bill, Intended to be offered to Parliament, for the better Relief and Employment of the Poor, within that Part of Great Britain called England (1775), p. 62.Google Scholar

^{page 111 note 1} For example, the Bishop of Norwich: “There must be drudges of labour (hewers of wood and drawers of water the Scriptures call them) as well as Counsellors to direct and Rulers to preside. […] To which of these classes we belong, especially the more inferior ones, our birth determines, […] These poor children are born to be daily labourers, for the most part to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. It is evident then that if such children are, by charity, brought up in a manner that is only proper to qualify them for a rank to which they ought not to aspire, such children would be injurious to the Community.” Sermon Preached by the Bishop of Norwich at the Anniversary Meeting of the Charity Schools in and about London and Westminster, May 1, 1755. Quoted by Jones, M. G., The Charity School Movement, A Study of Eighteenth Century Puritanism in Action (Cambridge, 1938), p. 75.Google Scholar

^{page 111 note 2} Owen, David, English Philanthropy 1660–1960 (London, 1965), p. 14.Google Scholar For example: “British benevolence, being thus united with native British fire, will diffuse the genuine spirit of patriotism through these realms, and we may hope to see such improvements in maritime affairs, as posterity looking back, will view with equal gratitude and applause.”; Hanway, Jonas, Account of the Marine Society, 6th ed. (London, 1759), p. 13.Google Scholar Italics in original.

^{page 111 note 3} Owen, op. cit., p. 14.

^{page 112 note 1} Yet not all motives were equally worthy. For example, Nelson, Richard, in An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate, Ways and Methods of Doing Good (London, 1715), p. 254Google Scholar, argued that charity might be immediately profitable, for “an unexpected inheritance, the determination of a lawsuit in our favour, the success of a great adventure, an advantageous match, are sometimes the recompenses of charity in this world”.

^{page 112 note 2} For example, Henry Fielding in his Proposal for Making an Effectual Provision for the Poor (1753) considered that the poor unable to work could be largely or wholly supported by private charity. Other commentators maintained that the high level of poor rates discouraged private charity.

^{page 112 note 3} It is generally accepted that most poor-law outlays consisted of casual doles or payments in kind. This was doubtless the easiest method by which untrained, sometimes unpaid and often overworked parochial officials could discharge their obligations. But this does not preclude the possibility that this was the most appropriate and efficacious procedure.

^{page 112 note 4} For example, Wilson, op. cit., p. 235; Clarkson, op. cit., p. 171–72, 231.

^{page 112 note 5} For example: “What, too, is the condition of the great body of the poor, employed in the several branches of this manufacture [i.e. wool] ?[…] Deplorable beyond expression. Some quite destitute of employment, and others half-employed, and almost all obliged to fly (where else can they fly) to the landed interest for at least partial support. […] It is a fact (I speak it from knowledge) that many parishes, at this instant, pay the carriage of wool, to and from the spinning houses, at the distance of twenty, thirty, and even forty miles, for the sake of finding some employment for their poor.” Anon, ., An Answer to Sir John Dalrymple's Pamphlet upon the Exportation of Wool (1782), pp. 29'30.Google Scholar No doubt this was a partisan statement. But the situation it described was by no means unique. For acknowledgement of the precarious situation in growing branches of manufacturing see, for example, Wilson, op. cit., p. 344, and Ashton, Economic Fluctuations, op. cit., pp. 145, 177.

^{page 113 note 1} Clarkson, op. cit., p. 171. According to a much earlier pre-Keynesian writer, the poor rate was largely a wages fund, which may have helped to keep the poor from starving but probably depressed the “industrious and competent” who were immediately above that level. Gray, B. Kirkman, A History of English Philanthropy, From the Dissolution of the Monasteries to the Taking of the First Census (London, 1967; originally published in 1905), pp. 220–21.Google Scholar This argument recalls the early-nineteenth-century case against the Speenhamland system. It assumes a fixed wages fund or, more precisely, that sums spent on poor relief would otherwise have been spent in some other manner, so that the net employment-generating effects of poor relief would be zero or negligible. Such a contention is, of course, highly suspect.

^{page 113 note 2} The counterfactual assumption that but for private and public aid some of the poor would have starved is often implied or explicitly stated; e.g., Gray, op. cit., p. 221; Wilson, op. cit., p. 235: “Often, the poor could only look for their immediate salvation to the voluntary redistribution of income through charity and poor relief” Clarkson, op. cit., pp. 237–38: for the poor, poverty “meant receiving incomes too small to support existence without public or private charity”.

^{page 113 note 3} Leonard, E. M., The Early History of English Poor Relief (Cambridge, 1900), pp. 302–04.Google Scholar Cf. S. and B. Webb, op. cit., pp. 402, 404–05; Marshall, op. cit., pp. 1, 250, 252–54. Recognition of the social value and, more particularly, the elevated aims of the poor-law system is not, of course, incompatible with severe criticism of its actual workings.

^{page 114 note 1} Hanway, Jonas, Letters to the Guardians of the Infant Poor and to the Overseers of the Parish Poor (1767), p. 13.Google Scholar

^{page 114 note 2} S. and B. Webb, op. cit., p. 419. For a more qualified assessment of diets in workhouses, orphanages and schools see Drummond, J. C. and Wilbraham, Anne, The Englishman's Food. A History of Five Centuries of English Diet, revised by Dorothy Hollingsworth (London, 1957), pp. 223–228.Google Scholar

^{page 114 note 3} On the question of energy see the fascinating unpublished paper by Freudenberger, Herman and Cummins, Gaylord, “Health, Work and Leisure in the Industrial Revolution” (Tulane University, 03 1973).Google Scholar Their argument suggests that rising food consumption and improved nutrition in the first half of the eighteenth century may have significantly improved the biological quality of the English labour force and increased its energy and productivity. This supports the contention that there may have been a positive relationship between poor-law expenditure and fertility. Cf. Habakkuk, H. J., Population growth and Economic Development Since 1750 (Leicester, 1971), p. 39.Google Scholar A somewhat similar argument appears in Blaug, Mark, “The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New”, in: Journal of Economic History, XXIII (1963), pp. 151–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 115 note 1} See, for example, Townsend, Peter, “The Meaning of Poverty”, in: British Journal of Sociology, XIII (1962), pp. 210–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Townsend, Peter, The Culture of Poverty (n.p., n.d.), p. 46.Google Scholar